HASTE MADE WASTE CAL'S BASKETBALL COACH, TODD BOZEMAN, WAS A MAN IN A HURRY, UNTIL CHARGES OF WRONGDOING HALTED HIM

Alameda County Superior Court is not where Todd Bozeman has beenaccustomed to making a name for himself. For the past 3 1/2years his province was Pete Newell Court, in Harmon Gym on thecampus of the University of California at Berkeley, where therosters of his Golden Bears basketball teams were studded withas much young talent as any in the land.

But last Friday morning Bozeman stood instead before a judge inan Oakland courtroom, at a hearing to determine whether atemporary restraining order, issued against him at the requestof a former Cal undergraduate, should be dropped or madepermanent. In May, Bozeman had given the 22-year-old ex-student,Suzanne Wilson, $2,000 to sink into an "investment club" calledFriends Helping Friends. But soon afterward Bozeman was amongscores of Bay Area residents who learned with alarm that countyprosecutors considered Friends Helping Friends to be an illegalpyramid scheme.

Bozeman says he lent the money to Wilson to help her pay for lawschool; she says that there was no loan, that he invested in thescheme and called to cash out. She also says he continued tocall her, lacing his conversations with sexual references, acharge Bozeman denies. On Aug. 6 he showed up at her workplaceon campus and pressed her for the money. She says he threatenedher; he says he only threatened to turn her in to the police.

Two days before Friday's court appearance another get-rich-quickscheme had collapsed of its own rickety contradictions. With theNCAA enforcement staff expected soon to deliver an officialletter of inquiry detailing alleged recruiting violations, Calofficials asked for and got Bozeman's resignation as coach. Hisdeparture followed nearly 43 months of turmoil and turnover inthe basketball program at the gemstone of California'suniversity system. Over that time there unfolded a TheodoreDreiser story updated for our times, a tale of blind striving,greed, betrayal and comeuppance, involving not only the coachbut also players and parents. There is a featured role for thepestilence of the moment in college athletics, the professionalsports agent. And there might even be vindication, albeit of ahollow kind, for the man Bozeman replaced, Lou Campanelli.

Tom Gardner, the father of guard Jelani Gardner, who has sincetransferred from Cal to Pepperdine, has told the NCAA thatBozeman promised him and his wife, Linda, $15,000 a year so theymight travel to follow their son's college career. Further, Tomand Linda say that Bozeman, through an intermediary, arrangedfor most of that money to be delivered. The Gardners secretlytaped a conversation between themselves and Bozeman in which thecash is discussed, and they have supplied the tape to NCAAinvestigators.

Bozeman, 32, says he did nothing wrong. But what is on that tapemore than anything else--more than the seven Golden Bearsplayers who transferred out over the last 3 1/2 years; more thanthe disciplinary actions against players and the NCAA probesthat had addled the program since he took over; more thanFriday's bizarre court hearing, in which judge Dawn Girardpostponed the case until Sept. 5, leaving the restraining orderin place--accounted for Bozeman's being shown the door lastweek, in spite of his 63-35 record, three NCAA tournamentappearances in four years and three years remaining on a$350,000-a-year package. (Cal will pay him his base salarythrough the coming season.)

With its move last week Cal demonstrated that at Berkeley,winning isn't quite everything--at least not yet. "The truth is,you don't have to cheat here to keep your job," says PeteNewell, the Hall of Famer who in 1959 coached the Bears to theirlone NCAA title. "You may have momentary glory, but in the longrun it hurts you more. See, at Cal, the alums don't want anational championship every year, or even every decade. Theywant to be proud."

There isn't much to be proud of there now. Last week's eventsopened a window on player procurement in college basketballtoday, revealing a state of affairs that extends well beyondBerkeley. And they hint at what may be the real shame of thegame. One prominent players agent told SI recently, "If a majorfootball school really wants someone, it can almost always finda booster to FedEx $10,000 or $15,000 to that player. Butbasketball isn't run by boosters. Basketball is run by agents."

Over the past decade no quality better characterized Bozeman'sprofessional life than speed. He was working as a FederalExpress deliveryman and assistant high school coach in 1988 whenhe quit to become a $9,000-a-year graduate assistant at GeorgeMason. Within two months he had moved to New Orleans, whereTulane was bringing back basketball after a point-shavingscandal had shut down its program for four seasons. He was 24,the youngest assistant coach in the game.

"Ain't got no ticket, man," Bozeman would reply, gunning theengine of his ambition.

By 1991 he had lit out for Berkeley, which sits hard by Oakland,then home to point guard Jason Kidd, the most prized recruit inthe high school class of '92. Kidd announced at the end of hisjunior year that he had eliminated the Bears from consideration,and the rest of the Cal coaches gave up on him. But Bozemanpersisted. When Kidd chose the Bears during the early-signingperiod that fall, no one was more shocked than Bozeman's boss,Campanelli.

Kidd was the centerpiece of a preternaturally talented buttenderfoot 1992-93 Cal team. On Jan. 24 the Bears drubbed UCLAby 22 points in Pauley Pavilion. But they also lost tolightweights like Cornell, and the temperamental Campanelliwould lash out angrily at his team, which included nineunderclassmen from two straight top-10-rated recruiting classes.By midseason, his players had quietly complained toadministrators about Campanelli's ranting, and the athleticdepartment was finding his behavior a source of embarrassment.

Cal's record stood at 10-6 after a loss at Arizona State inearly February. Stevie Johnson, a former Bears forward nowplaying professionally in France, says that Bozeman summoned himto his hotel room on the morning of the team's next game,against Arizona in Tucson on Feb. 7, and told him that acoaching change might be in the offing. Johnson says Bozemanwanted to sound him out to see if he would be in his corner ifCal vice chancellor Dan Boggan, who had responsibility for theathletic department, were to ask Johnson his feelings about acoaching change. "[Bozeman] said, 'Tell [Boggan] you'd like meto be the new coach, but don't tell him I asked you,'" Johnsonsays. "And he asked me, if he became head coach, who on the teamwould like it."

Bozeman says Johnson's account is fiction, the delusions of abad actor who holds a grudge against him because Bozemandismissed Johnson from the team the following November fordisciplinary reasons. Bozeman insists he had no clue thatCampanelli's job was in jeopardy. But Cal lost that game toArizona, and Campanelli tore into his players again, this timewithin earshot of athletic director Bob Bockrath. Campanelli wasfired the following afternoon. Though Bozeman was only 29 andhad never been a head coach at any level, he was named toreplace Campanelli on an interim basis.

The Bears went on to win nine of their final 10 games, reachedthe Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament and in the process did whatno team had been able to do since 1987: deny Duke a spot in theFinal Four. Bozeman was rewarded with a three-year contract.

From there Bozeman simply hurtled faster forward. If there was aplayer to be procured, he was there, in the hunt. He knew thatJelani Gardner, the 1993-94 California high school player of theyear, had a healthy ego. So he played to it, telling Gardnerthat he was a natural to assume the mantle of Kidd, who hadannounced that he was entering the NBA draft after only twoyears at Cal. A year later the grapevine had ShareefAbdur-Rahim, a devout young man from a Muslim family inMarietta, Ga., and a top-five recruit nationally, as a lock forGeorgia Tech or some nearby ACC blue blood like Duke or NorthCarolina. But Bozeman had done his homework. He knew to leavehis shoes outside the door when he visited Shareef's home, knewhow to greet his mother (because Islam forbids shaking a woman'shand), knew he could sell the family on Berkeley as a haven ofmulticulturalism where Shareef could practice his religionunself-consciously. (The NCAA deemed it only a minor violationthat a Muslim graduate student at Berkeley, using a ticketpurchased by Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, arrangedfor Abdur-Rahim to visit the campus even though, as a recruitedathlete who hadn't yet qualified academically, he wouldn't havebeen eligible to visit at school expense.) Soon Bozeman becameknown as Coach Lottery, the man who had produced three jackpotwinners in four years: Kidd (taken No. 2 by the DallasMavericks), forward Lamond Murray (the seventh selection in the'94 draft, by the Los Angeles Clippers) and Abdur-Rahim (theVancouver Grizzlies' top pick last year, at No. 3).

While recruiting, Bozeman played the high school kids' peer, butcoaching them was another matter. "A lot of guys wanted him toremain like when he recruited them," says sixth-year seniorAlfred Grigsby, Bozeman's first big-time signee at Cal. "Theywanted buddy-buddy, but Coach had a job to do."

After the 1994-95 season, forward Tremaine Fowlkes, who hadplayed 26 minutes a game as a freshman, wanted Bozeman toguarantee in writing that he would play 35 minutes and have fiveplays run for him every game. His classmate Gardner, who hadaveraged 27 minutes, also demanded 35. Bozeman refused to bepinned down. The talent kept rolling in, but it seemed to do sowith no regard for how each piece might fit. Last Thursday areporter remarked to Bozeman that he seemed to be taking theloss of his job with surprising calm. "People have no idea [whatit was like]," Bozeman said, after detailing the welter ofparents, teenagers and third parties with whom he had to deal."That's why I'm not tripping."

At the very least, Bozeman might be fazed by what Tom Gardnerhas told the NCAA. Jelani had indeed started at point guard inthe second half of his freshman season. But the Gardners wereconcerned that Bozeman was recruiting another point guard,Prentice McGruder, a junior college transfer who ultimatelywould cut into Jelani's playing time, just as Jelani had beenbrought in over incumbent K.J. Roberts, who wound uptransferring to UC Riverside. And there was, Tom says, a problemabout the money--the failure of Bozeman to deliver the full$15,000 he had allegedly promised.

To address these concerns, Linda and Tom say, Bozeman flew toLos Angeles in the summer of 1995, before Jelani's sophomoreseason got under way. While dining with the Gardners at theCheesecake Factory, a restaurant in Marina del Rey, he wasunaware that Linda had a voice-activated tape recorder concealedin her purse. After dinner the Gardners drove Bozeman back tothe airport. While Tom and Bozeman conversed in the front seat,Linda sat in the back with her tape recorder still running. TheGardners' Jeep Cherokee was double-parked curbside at the Unitedterminal as Tom pressed for the full sum he says he had beenpromised. "The information on the tape is a slam dunk," Tom says.

While they sat in the Cherokee, says Tom, "[Bozeman] said, 'Ifthat's what you want'--meaning the money--'then I'll show youwhat $15,000 is really about. It will be about just $15,000.'"The Gardners took this as a threat--that if they became toobelligerent in their demands, Bozeman could, as Tom says, "messup Jelani's career," because he controlled Jelani's playingtime. Tom says he and Linda made the tape because Bozeman hadn'tkept his word about the money, and in the ensuing season Jelanidid find his playing time scaled back slightly.

"We kept Jelani out of this whole deal," Tom says. "The bottomline is, I was wrong. I jeopardized my son's future by takingmoney to begin with. But [Bozeman] was wrong, too. He got us themoney. I'm admitting my mistake, and J's moving on. I hope[Bozeman] admits his mistake, too."

In an interview with SI last Thursday, Bozeman denied all of TomGardner's allegations. While he acknowledged that the Gardnersmentioned that they had been getting improper payments, he sayshe didn't take them seriously because he had found Tom Gardnerto be untruthful with him before. "We've developed the TomGardner truth test," says Jim Cobb, Bozeman's attorney. "How canyou tell when Tom Gardner's lying? When his lips are moving."Because the Gardners taped Bozeman in violation of Californialaw, which requires the consent of all parties for aconversation to be recorded, Cobb says he will initiate a civilaction on Bozeman's behalf against the Gardners and perhapsagainst the NCAA.

All parties investigating the case--Cal, the Pac-10 Conferenceand the NCAA--confirm the existence of the tape and thesubstance of the conversations recorded on it. And a sourceclose to the probe, who has heard the tape and read a transcriptof its contents, says that, during the conversation, "Todddidn't deny [the payments] or his knowledge of them. The thingthat we're pushing more on--because the tape makes this veryclear--is that he had knowledge or should have had knowledgeabout very major NCAA rules violations, and it's his ethicalduty to report that. He did not."

To date, no one has been able to answer the big question: Wheredid the money come from? "Nobody knows," says Cal athleticdirector John Kasser, who replaced Bockrath in January 1994. Butit does bring us to the two other principals who were aware ofthe "traveling money."

One is James Casey, who was a registered players agent until1992, representing NBA center Benoit Benjamin before leaving thebusiness to become a freelance "runner," a denizen of thatdemimonde of middlemen who initiate contacts with prospectiveclients and deliver them to agents. He is also married to LindaGardner's first cousin.

Casey has had several ignominious brushes with college sports.In 1992 he hooked up with an L.A. business manager named RayFisher, who wanted Casey to recruit athletes for his stable ofclients. Fisher claims to have given more than $36,000 to Casey,former Arizona star Chris Mills and Mills's father, Claud.Fisher thought that sum would be a down payment on Chris'sbecoming a Fisher client, but Casey never delivered. Fisher suedClaud and Chris to recoup his "investment," and the case wassettled out of court with a confidentiality clause.

Since then, Cal has had its own episode with Casey, who in March1995 squired Fowlkes to a Long Beach car dealership and gave him$1,800 to help pay for a Chevy Blazer. As a result, the NCAAordered Fowlkes to sit out 14 games last season. He returned forthe final 14 games and has since left for Fresno State.

Tom Gardner says that he used Casey only as a front man to fieldoffers from schools willing to pay for his son's services. Theparty who actually delivered the cash was former Indiana starButch Carter, who was then a Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach.Tom says Carter approached the family while Jelani was in highschool, saying he was representing Bozeman. He then sentpayments by overnight mail.

Carter admits he sent the money but says he was passing it onfrom Casey (whom Carter had met while playing for the LosAngeles Lakers), not from Bozeman (whom he describes as "adistant friend"--even though Bozeman immediately rattled offCarter's phone number when asked for it last week). "It wasn'tgoing to be a problem for me [to send the money]," says Carter,referring to his status outside the purview of the NCAA. "Wouldit benefit Bozeman? Yes. But I said to Casey that if Todd foundout, there's no way he'd [tolerate] it. He'd turn it in." Cartersays he has documents implicating two other schools that bid inthe Jelani sweepstakes and offered to show that evidence to SI"if you hold your story and keep me out of it."

Yet, says Casey, who is an Angeleno, "why would I send money allthe way to Milwaukee for him to FedEx to L.A., when all I had todo was walk across the street? It's crazy. It didn't happen thatway."

Aaron Goodwin, a Bay Area agent, represents former Cal starsKidd and Abdur-Rahim, as well as Seattle Supersonics guard GaryPayton and Sacramento Kings guard Mitch Richmond. Tom Gardnersays he believes that Bozeman tried to steer his star players toGoodwin, a charge Bozeman and Goodwin deny. "These accusationshave been made before, actually by more credible people than theGardners," says Goodwin.

Bozeman denies any business connection with Goodwin. And Goodwinconcurs. "I've spoken with the NCAA about this," says Goodwin."I've spoken to Cal officials, and I've spoken to the Pac-10about these rumors. The bottom line is, Todd and I have norelationship other than that I have represented two players hehas coached. We don't hang out. We don't do business. People tryto make out that I try to pay players to go to Cal, or I'mpaying Todd Bozeman to get players. I don't have time to hangout at Cal."

Nonetheless, while Kidd was a Berkeley freshman, Goodwin's goldMercedes was often parked in the lot outside Harmon Gym. Hewould bop in and out of the basketball office, and during theoff-season he watched the players play pickup ball.

Goodwin says he would have had no need to get involved incollege recruiting. "I just did an $85 million deal for GaryPayton," says Goodwin. "What would I want with high schoolplayers?"

While there is no evidence linking Bozeman to Goodwin's goodfortune, there is an answer to the question he poses. Kidd andAbdur-Rahim were high school players not too long ago--playersso good that neither had to spend more than two years in collegebefore becoming a lottery pick in the NBA draft.

That old Watergate axiom--Follow the money--leads down a trailthat, at week's end, went nowhere. If Carter is lying and themoney didn't come from Casey, where did it come from? If Carteris telling the truth and the money did come from Casey, wheredid Casey, who is a middleman and not an agent, get it? "Youhave to believe there's more to all this than just smoke," saysNewell. "There are some agents who are a lot closer to theprogram than the alumni are. That isn't right. That breeds a lotof problems.

"It all goes back to the cloud that came when they sounceremoniously dumped Lou Campanelli. It was just so strange,being done in midyear, just two weeks after beating UCLA at UCLA."

Hours before Bozeman stepped down, SI reached Campanelli. He'sin Tokyo now, coaching in a Japanese league. For the first timesince his firing, he spoke publicly about the school that hadlet him go. On the other end of the line, his composure crackedas he said, "They carved out a piece of my heart. Let them justbury themselves. They've made their nest. Let them lie in it. Asyou sow in life, so shall you reap."

COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BURGESS Hours after his court appearance, Bozeman paid a visit to Newell Court, perhaps for the last time. [Todd Bozeman]COLOR PHOTO: ROBERT BECK Tom Gardner (right) says Bozeman promised him $15,000 a year when son Jelani (above) signed with Cal. [Tom Gardner]COLOR PHOTO: BOB ROSATO [See caption above--Jelani Gardner in game]COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BIEVER Bozeman came to be known as Coach Lottery after Kidd (5) and Abdur-Rahim were high draft picks. [Todd Bozeman and Jason Kidd]COLOR PHOTO: BRUCE L. SCHWARTZMAN [Shareef Abdur-Rahim in game]COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BURGESS With his wife, TeLethea, at his side, Bozeman met a full-court press. [TeLethea Bozeman and Todd Bozeman surrounded by reporters]